Beardie Advice

[nessy247]

I have a 6 month old beardie and was told to keep the tank temps up for the first year to get them nice and big. the temps are around 34-36 deg. in hot spot and quite warm at night as well, as i have a 100wat ceramic globe on.
He seems to never want to stay in the hot spot and trys to dig and hide under the sand stone i put in there. 90% of the time when I get home from work he'll be under it. He still eats some roaches not as many as he use to, but not greens. before winter came in he would eat lote of crix and some greens as well. Not sure what else to try????
any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks.

[Chris1]

while you could raise the basking temps a bit more, its not really unusual fro them to slow down a bit during winter anyway.

my 2 and a half year olds normally bask till i get home at night during summer, but these days they bask fro an hour or 2 after breaky and them go and make themselves comfortable somewhere cool,..

if youre worried hes not eating enough give him a warm bath before feeding to make sure hes warm.
if youre worried hes not digesting enough heat up a bag of rice in the microwave, wrap it in a towel and make his sit on that fro an hour or 2 while u watch telly @ night,....my girls go to sleep on theirs @ night and it cools down after a few hours,..

if youre sure hes healthy, dont worry about it, if he starts losing weight and looking unwell take him to the vet.

[Dragoness]

My bigger guy is about 7 months old and he is slowing down a litle for winter as well. He used to bask all day in summer, now I have to get him up of a morning and move him under his light, he basks for a 1-2 hours, then climbs back down into his hide. He is only eating every 2nd day now and nowhere near as much as he was. He still eats most of his veggies, but only if given them every 2-3 days. I just figured it was a winter thing, he is fat and pooing, so Im not concerned.

Cheers

[nessy247]

Dragoness
What veggies do you feed yours? I ve tryed celery bok choi carrots, asian salad mix ? he seems to not be interesed in them. Could it be because I offer it to him every day? rather then every 2 or 3 days. Have hered of any tricks to get them to go for there greens?

[Chris1]

some people say a laser pointer gets their attention by making it look alive,..

i'm suggest a few freshly shed mealworms might do the same, but mine manage to pick out the worms and spit out the salad,...

[JasonL]

If he's got good condition, let him brumate, he may go down for a short time, but he will come out when he needs to feed. Some dragons will eat straight through winter, and some get it in their heads that they want to brumate, and nothing will stop them. During brumation they slow their metabolism down to snails pace, waking them up constantly will stuff this around, especially when they don't want to eat. It is important to have hatchling reptiles conditioned for this before winter.